New Horizons: Chapter 7

“Absolutely not.” Lovath’s face was stuck in a frown as he glared up at the open vent. Gray, the smallest of the crew, was up in there tightening some bolts. I understood why they liked having him around to get in the small spaces and do maintenance they’d normally need to make a pit stop for.

“You’re being ridiculous.” Gray’s voice echoed from inside the vent.

“The answer is no. You are not equipped to help on our next drop.” The traakian’s brow patches were drawn tightly together, and I despised that I might actually agree with him. As far as I knew, Gray didn’t even know how to shoot a phaser. Over the last week, Lovath had been planning drops and pickups in between here and the Undoor DMZ. This first one was a supposedly simple: drop a thousand pounds of moon rocks—a gray powder similar to cocaine, to my understanding—collect the credits, and move on.

Anything could end in a firefight when it came to illegal activity though, as far as I was concerned. Especially because the drop was in person.

“Come on, Lo.” Gray’s irritated voice grew closer, and suddenly he slid feet first from the vent. Lovath caught him around the waist to soften his landing, and I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes. “I’ve been here how long? I want to help.”

“You do help, ksiva. By climbing in vents, being a tech genius, and staying on the ship where I know you’re safe if people start shooting.” Lovath tucked an unruly piece of hair behind Gray’s ear and used his thumb to wipe a smudge of grease off his face.

Barf.

“You don’t even know how to use a phaser.” I pointed out, only to receive a scathing glance in return.

“Because asshole here won’t teach me.” Gray smacked at Lovath’s chest. “And you don’t know how either!” He snapped back at me as well.

“Which is why I’m not going.” I shrugged. It also had a lot to do with how uncomfortable I was with getting in trouble with the law. Didn’t like it on Earth, didn’t like it in space. A smuggler ship was really the last place I wanted to be.

“I’m being serious. Shouldn’t I least know how to defend myself?” At Gray’s very good point, Lovath made a sour face.

“I’m also being serious. No.”

“They won’t teach the humans to use phasers, Gray.” I tossed in, tone droll. “We’re not equal to them, remember?”

Lovath scowled. “This has nothing to do with you Derrick, and nothing to do with you being human.”

“So you’d let me learn how to use a phaser?” I arched an imperious brow as Gray’s face darkened. He didn’t like it when I argued with the crew, I knew that well. But at some point he would have to see that we were being treated differently because we were human.

“Why the drek not? Have at it.” Lovath’s words took a moment to register.

Just like that? These aliens would give me access to weapons knowing I didn’t trust them, knowing I resented what aliens had done to me? Maybe they simply didn’t see me as a threat. Lovath thought that even with a gun, I was no danger to them. That he’d was so flippant about letting me use a weapon was almost worse than him refusing.

Gray, however, tugged out of the traakian’s arms, expression hard. “You’re kidding me. You don’t care if Derrick uses a phaser but you won’t let me even touch one? That’s bolshtec, Lo!”

It wasn’t really that ridiculous; I was shockingly on Lovath’s side. Gray needed to stay out of harm’s way. But I kept quiet because I liked the frustrated noise Lovath made in the back of his throat, how he reached for Gray and Gray just slipped further away.

“Gray, baby, it’s not like that.” Lovath followed him as he stormed off, and I watched them go with a sense of smugness that was admittedly unfair. Gray didn’t belong out here in space, though, and maybe he’d learn it on his own over time.

“Is this what you are after?” The deep, rumbly voice that could only be Kryn spoke from behind me, and I whirled on him. I’d forgotten he was there, lingering stoically in the background as he seemed to often do.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Derrick.” Kryn’s tone spoke volumes, cajoling. “If you think to try and tear Lovath and Gray apart, it won’t work. Lovath would go to the ends of the galaxy for your friend. This moment we are on the way to the Undoor DMZ when Qwexil poses no threat to us. Lovath simply wants to kill him for Gray’s benefit—as do we all.”

Irritation lanced through me. He had a point, much as I hated it. Gray and Lovath’s relationship wasn’t going to be irreparably damaged by an argument about whether or not Gray got to shoot a phaser. But, over time, maybe things would change. Maybe it would be clear they didn’t see eye to eye on everything.

“Maybe.” I shrugged. “We’ll see how it plays out.”

Kryn huffed, then his lips tilted in a small smile. “Your rage should get channeled into something more useful. I can teach you to use a phaser, like you mentioned.”

I paused. “And what, go on your runs with you? I don’t want to be any more involved in illegal activity than I already am.”

“Not necessarily.” Kryn shrugged those big shoulders. “But Gray was right, and Lovath will see it too. You both should at least know how to defend yourselves. We are good at what we do, but not infallible. If we get boarded, what would you do?”

I…didn’t know. Even being in space over six months, everything was so alien to me, for lack of a better term. I was starting to understand the equipment, better than I’d ever thought I would, but I’d never been a sci-fi junkie like Gray. There were no revelations that the aliens did things the same way humans had imagined in movies because I’d never seen any of those movies.

I was learning all this stuff from the ground up.

“You’ll actually show me how to use a weapon? I could shoot a gun on Earth. I don’t know how similar it is.” I did miss the security of owning a gun, of knowing my safety, to some degree, was in my own hands. I’d been a good shot too, though probably rusty at this point from lack of practice.

“Then we shall see. Follow.” Kryn’s response was simple, and as he turned and began to walk away from me, I had to make a decision. Was I going to follow Kryn, but learn what could be a valuable skill? Or was I going to be defiant and make a stand against just doing what I was told?

I waffled for just long enough to seem indecisive, then took off after Kryn down the hall. The krexxian wasn’t walking very fast, so I caught up to him easily. He said nothing about my brief hesitation, and for that at least I was grateful. I had so little pride left after being abducted, poked and prodded, and left to die of lung failure on an alien planet.

God, I was bitter.

The room Kryn took me to was one I hadn’t ventured in yet in the mere week I’d been on the Event Horizon. Wall to wall, ceiling to ceiling, it was filled with weapons; half of them, I was sure, were less than legal to own. Most were varying sizes of techy-looking guns, though I saw a glass case of knives and also some other things I didn’t recognize.

Kryn approached a wall of smaller weapons—I tried not to be insulted, but I kind of was—and grabbed one off of the display. “This one will probably fit your hands. You are closer to shukasi-sized.” He didn’t seem to mean that negatively, and I sort of knew what he meant.

It was Shukasi Federation enforcers that had taken care of me and dumped me on Pretia, though only one of them had actually been shukasi by race. I hadn’t seen much of her, just that she was a only a little shorter than me and had inky, midnight black skin with metallic gold markings all over. It made sense that weapons made for shukasi hands would be fit for humans as well.

“So how does it work? On Earth, guns have a trigger that you pull.” I took the phaser from Kryn, looking it over. It was silver and more rounded than a gun, with no sharp edges, but the basic shape was similar. There did seem to be a hole in the expected place for a trigger finger.

“Same concept then.” Kryn nodded as he approached the far back wall. Waving his hand over a sensor, similar to the door sensors everywhere, the weapons walls closed up and holographic targets flickered to life on the back wall. The room had effectively turned into a shooting range.

Okay, I had to admit that was kind of cool.

By instinct, I fitted the gun in my hand—it was the perfect size, of-fucking-course—and held it up at the target. There was a basic sight, but…I didn’t really know how to set the thing off. Did I need both hands? I could shoot one handed but two were always better for support and—

“Our weapons all have a fingerprint trigger to activate.” Kryn’s voice was to my left and I had to force myself not to jerk away when his fingers brushed my hand. I didn’t like to be touched so often nowadays; Kryn’s species had quite a lot to do with that.

He positioned my thumb up into a notch above the trigger guard, and the weapon lit up in my hand. “Just like that, it has power?”

“Well, they are supposed to be programmed to individual people so no one unauthorized can use a weapon. As our operation is very above aboard, I’m sure you can tell how much we care about those regulations.” A hint of sarcasm made it into Kryn’s usual monotone, and I snorted in derision.

“Yes, I can imagine you don’t give a shit about regulations. This thing have any sort of ammo or is it just…energy?” The weapon was practically humming in my hand, but that didn’t mean anything would happen when I pulled the trigger.

“It does need ammunition to power on and discharge.” Taking the phaser back from me, Kryn hit the bottom of the handle with the heel of his palm, popping out what looked a lot like a magazine. Except whatever was inside it glowed blue and moved like a thick liquid.

He pushed the mag back in and handed the phaser back. I took it, aiming for the targets again. “How many shots you get out of a mag? Any safety mechanism?”

“It won’t power on at all unless you use the thumbprint scanner, if that’s what you call safety. Mag for that phaser will get you thirty shots in.”

That wasn’t too bad; more than a gun back on Earth. Testing, I aimed and fired. The recoil was a bit worse than I expected, reverberating through my shoulder, and the entire phaser dislodged from my hand and powered down. However, the blue, flickering target had a bright red mark just on the outside edge.

“Well at least I didn’t miss.” I muttered, lifting my hand to try again, this time raising my other hand for support as well. More prepared, the next shot hit a bit closer, and the phaser didn’t jolt from my hand. Instead of bullets, shots came out as a bolt of blue energy, and they didn’t make the deafening sound guns on Earth did. They made a loud sort of electrical zap that didn’t call for earplugs. No brass flying everywhere either.

Huh.

“Nice job.” Kryn actually sounded impressed, and when I glanced over at him, he looked impressed too. “So you have something similar to this on Earth?”

Lowering the phaser, I removed my thumb from the scanner and let it power off as I handed it back to Kryn. “Yeah, more mechanical though. Ours use gunpowder to launch piece of metal at someone. Like with a small explosion.” I tried to dumb it down as best I could—I didn’t think Kryn would have a good translation for ‘bullet’ if alien weapons didn’t use them.

“It is a good idea.” Kryn mused. “Humans have ingenuity, if not advanced technology.”

I barked a derisive laugh. “Always inferior in some way, right?”

Kryn’s head tilted to the side. “Must you always see an insult in what we say, Derrick? Humans do, by our standards, have inferior technology. That does not make you an inferior race. Not to us.”

“We get traded on a slave market as exotics, Kryn.” I bit back. “That’s fucking enough.” Mood soured, I stalked out of the weapons hold before I said anything nasty. Maybe Lovath and his crew, specifically, didn’t view humans as lesser than them—though I was on the fence about that. It mattered that the whole damn galaxy thought of us like that.

All I wanted was to go home and be at the top of the food chain again.